Embroidery: Work in Progress

Horsies on a hill

Hmm. My first attempt at an amigurumi-bearing hat looks just like a first attempt. Next time, I will make the stitches tighter, and make a more supportive hat and add the green eyelash yarn on top of it, instead of constructing the whole hat out of the fragile eyelash stuff. Still, I think the hat does have a hopelessly homemade, lopsided charm of its own.... And I'm still hugely amused by my friend's idea of making one's head look like a grassy hill. I may attempt this again but add crocheted dandelions or something instead of heavy figurines.

I'm almost done with a custom order for an octopus hat in super-girly pink and purple with sequins for suckers. My next plan for a character hat is a Harry Potter-themed one featuring wee figurines of Hermione and Professor Snape (in calico, I think, to avoid the heavy stuffed amigurumi issue) peering out from inside a cauldron.

felt board curtain

I haven't posted much in the last couple of weeks, because the main thing I had to make was room on my hard drive for more pics. Now my computer is sufficiently backed up, and I can post again!

I could write about the total failure jacket I made out of old Tshirts. The concept was cool and a little a propos for Earth Day--reduce, reuse, recycle and all that. But the jacket turned out really, really dumb looking. So I'm going to post about a little idea I had for my almost 4yo son's room.

We basically have a one bedroom apartment, since we are caretakers for a historic house. The room off the kitchen (commonly known as the dining room) is my son's room. I've done a lot towards making a kid's paradise in the very limited amount of space I have. The door between the kitchen and the room has windows on it, so we've always thrown a blanket over it to block the light from the kitchen at bedtime. But that's a little unsightly. So I FINALLY made a curtain (I hate making curtains) from some navy blue canvas I had lying around.

We can't waste any space, so I put a couple of large pockets on the bottom for storage. But the major addition was a felt board. I had a pile of acrylic felt (from back before I knew you could get/make wool felt, if you can believe it!) lying around that needed using up. I tried pinning and sewing first, but it was a little unwieldy, so I fused the edges down and then zigzagged the finish.

Ellis immediately loved it. He had me cutting stuff out as fast as I could (hence the stars and houses that are a little unshapely as I freehanded them). There's pockets right underneath the felt for easy storage of the felt pieces. I positioned the felt board just high enough that he really has to stand on a stool right now, but he never has to worry about his one-year-old brother messing it up.

--Jeannette

Perfect for Earth Day: New Stencil

I know I have been inconsistent, but I am trying to remember to post every week! Here is a new stencil I just made. Hopefully in the next few weeks I will be able to post some art I will make using it =)

Earth AND City!

SO MUCH FUN! I didn't even realize I used the same kind of button embelishment for both of these cards. From country to city! YAY!

A Tree Necklace in Honor of Arbor Day 2009

For as far back as I can remember my family has celebrated Arbor Day. When I was little the festivities were orchestrated by my Great Aunt, a clothing designer and seamstress who grew up on a farm in a family of seventeen kids, and my Godfather, a writer and avid gardener. Every year we’d join the community tree plantings - I always chose white birch, dogwoods and fruit trees - and also work on our own gardens.

We usually started our seeds in February, and by April we’d be thinning them out, trading varieties, sharing with our neighbors… It is thrilling to me that I make a living as a jewelry designer, astounding even, but I am most proud of the fact that I can grow things. I recently planted a new fig tree, and the photo at right is a sampling of my heirloom tomato seedlings.

Some of my favorite jewelry designs combine my love of shiny things and gardening. In honor of Arbor Day I made the necklace shown above - it features an artisan lampwork glass bead with raised glass trees that have swirled brown and olive trunks and vivid orange foliage. A deep blue sky is visible through the leaves.

The bead is a hung from a necklace of lapis and orange carnelian rounds that perfectly match the tree bead, and I added Bali sterling silver accents to make the colors “pop”. I like for my jewelry to look good coming and going, so the back of the necklace is embellished too. You can see the whole piece here.

Arbor Day is this Friday, April 24, 2009 - go plant a tree!

No-knead bread!

I'm not that happy with how any of my little mixed-media collage paintings are looking at the moment, so I'm sharing the bread I'm making tonight instead. The photo is actually from a time I made it a few months ago since tonight's loaf is still in the oven.

I'm more of a cooking person than a baking person, and I've had mixed results with other bread recipes. But I'm really loving this No Knead Bread recipe I got from the New York Times. Seriously, even if you think you're not a baker, give it a try! It's so good and so easy and way cheaper than buying bread from the store!

I make the white bread recipe, but I substitute one cup whole wheat for one of the cups of white flour. You just mix up your flour, yeast, salt, and water, and leave it to rise for four hours. Then you dump your dough out on a flat surface, flip it over and let it sit for another 30 minutes. Then you bake it in some sort of closed container like a dutch oven for 30 minutes. Almost no work involved, and you get a lovely round loaf of bread with a great crispy crust! The closed container is the secret to the crispy crust- apparently professional bakers have special ovens that inject steam while baking. This is very hard to replicate in a regular oven, so using a closed container is like a little steam oven inside your regular oven.

There is another version of the no-knead recipe that involves letting the dough sit for 14 hours, which I tried once. But I liked the 4-hour version much better anyway!